The present disclosure relates to a sheet conveyance apparatus including a conveyance guide that supports and guides a sheet fed from a sheet stacking plate by a feeding portion downstream in the feeding direction, and to an image forming apparatus including the sheet conveyance apparatus.
An image forming apparatus such as a facsimile apparatus, a copy machine, a printer, a scanner, or a multifunction peripheral having such functions includes a sheet conveyance apparatus. The sheet conveyance apparatus takes out and conveys, one by one, sheets such as document sheets or print sheets placed on a sheet tray. The sheet conveyance apparatus has a curved conveyance path that guides a sheet to an image forming portion or an image reading position. When a sheet is conveyed to such a curved conveyance path, a sound (contact sound) occurs due to contact of the sheet with a conveyance guide. In order to prevent such occurrence of sound, a mechanism is known in which a blower hole is provided on the conveyance guide forming the conveyance path, and air is blown from the blower hole toward a sheet, thereby stabilizing the orientation of the sheet.
A sound during sheet conveyance occurs not only at a portion where the conveyance path is curved. For example, in the case where there is a height difference between a feeding position of a sheet and the conveyance guide, a sound also occurs when a sheet passes through the height difference portion. In detail, when the rear end portion of the sheet passes through the feeding position, the orientation of the rear end portion of the sheet is changed from the feeding position to the conveyance guide, and the rear end portion of the sheet collides with the conveyance guide, whereby a sound (collision sound) occurs.